From Publishers Weekly
The title of this not-so-rough guide to the mid-century social circle, of which Allen Ginsberg was the center, is taken from the poet's Footnote to Howl. For Morgan, Ginsberg was the locomotive for the group of journeyers, addicts, loiterers, and seekers that came to be known, in Jack Kerouac's term, as beats and who would act as catalyst for the late 1950s beatniks as well as the social movements of the 1960s. As Morgan points out, this was a boys' club—the combustible William Burroughs, murderer Lucien Carr, the charismatic bisexual Neal Cassady, the incorrigible Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Gary Snyder, and others more on the fringe, like Ken Kesey—and a white one at that. In part, such could be explained by the zeitgeist, in which even (largely gay) revolutionaries were unconscious participant-prisoners. The infamous and essential On the Road manuscript consisted of attached papers fed through Kerouac's typewriter like a roll of paper in an early word processor printer, and bravely promoted by agent Sterling Lord, represents for Morgan (in a bit of a stretch) how far ahead of their time the beats were. Although Ginsberg biographer Morgan cannot deliver a firsthand account of the beat history, readers do gain some immediacy regarding the legendary lives and loves of this motley crew that changed the world. (May 11)
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*Starred Review* Morgan brings a productive career of chronicling the mid-twentieth-century writers known as the Beats to a fine point with this thorough popular history that eschews criticism to concentrate on who was where, doing what, when. If you weren’t a friend of Allen Ginsberg’s, you weren’t a Beat, Morgan says, which means that the first Beat, Lucien Carr, was never a writer. Carr’s good looks attracted Columbia freshman Ginsberg, not yet a self-accepting homosexual, and his affability led him to introduce Ginsberg to William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, the other essential Beats. The basic trio pulled other aspiring authors as well as artists, thieves, and con men into their ambit as, during 1944–59, all the trials, travels, and travail that eventuated in the three holy books of Beat—Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, Kerouac’s On the Road, and Burroughs’ Naked Lunch—transpired, Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder became second-tier Beats (Snyder proved crucial because, while never involved in the others’ sexual and pharmaceutical adventures, he set the example for Ginsberg’s very influential later turns toward Buddhism and ecology), and Kerouac separated himself via the bottle. Kerouac’s 1969 death is often considered the end of the Beat generation, though his opinion was that that happened in 1949. Though by no means stylishly written, this must be regarded as the just-the-facts-ma’am basic text on the most important literary phenomenon of post-WWII America. --Ray Olson
Review
"The Typewriter is Holy is a wonderful romp, a totally engrossing history of the Beat generation, and those wildly colorful figures who brought about a seismic change in our culture. It makes sense of the intersecting lives of Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, William Burroughs and others whose great adventures gave birth to the upheavals of the Sixties. No one alive knows these people as well as Bill Morgan does, and the result is a fascinating chronicle.”
—Dinitia Smith, author of The Illusionist and Remember This
“At long last we have a first-rate history of the Beat Generation! Bill Morgan’s The Typewriter Is Holy not only explores the enduring revolutionary appeal of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs but proudly brings marvelous lesser known Beat artists like Alan Ansen and Joanne Kyger into the Main Game mix. A masterful synthesis brimming with clarity and erudition”
—Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University and editor of Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954.
"Bill Morgan draws on an encyclopedic knowledge of the Beat writers to shine sober, sympathetic light into the dark corners of four tortured lives. His painfully personal profiles of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and William Burroughs show how their misguided search for personal freedom trapped them in their own obsessions and addictions, yet also sparked an enlivening burst of creative genius."
-- Don Lattin, author of The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America.
About the Author
Bill Morgan is the author and editor of more than a dozen books about the Beat writers, including the acclaimed biography, I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. For nearly forty years he has worked as an editor and archival consultant for nearly every member of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Diane Di Prima, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, and Edie Kerouac. He lives in Vermont.
